Citation

Meyer F, Willinger R. Int. J. Veh. Safety 2009; 4(4): 285-299.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2009, Inderscience Publishers)

DOI

10.1504/IJVS.2009.032757

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This study proposes to assess the interaction between the three-year-old child head-neck system and a typical airbag, a protective system frequently used in the automotive field. Two separated models (head and neck) developed at the Strasbourg University (UDS) were coupled in order to estimate the injury risk during this type of impact. The first model developed is a three-year-old child finite element neck model (FEM) based on a realistic geometry. This FEM was validated in four directions against an original method based on scaling method. The second FEM is a three-year-old child head FE model published by Roth et al (2008). This model proposed an injury criterion in terms of Von Mises stress in the brain for moderate neurological injuries. After a coupling of these two FE models two impacts a frontal and lateral impact configuration are simulated. These impacts consisted of an airbag deployment at different gaps in order to calculate and estimate child brain injury risks.